U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday invited Indian industry leaders to invest “billions” in America and promised reduced regulations to enhance the ease of doing business in the country.
“Congratulations on your success. We hope you all come to the United States and invest more billions,” Mr. Trump said at an interaction with the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of some of the top Indian companies. “I view it as jobs. We have great people,” the U.S. President remarked, adding that regulations “will only get better” for investment in America.
Prominent among the Indian industry leaders who attended the interaction with the visiting U.S. leader were Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra, Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and the Chairman and CEO of Arcelor Mittal, Lakshmi Mittal.
Responding to a question from B.V.R. Mohan Reddy of Cyient on the regulatory challenges faced by companies investing in the U.S., Mr. Trump said his administration was working on cutting regulations but that they had to adhere to a notice period to do so. “Some of the regulations you have to go through are statutory process... We are going to cut a lot more regulations but we have to give a notice... A lot of them will be cut and you will see a big difference and it will only get better.”
During the interaction, Mr. Chandrasekaran of Tata Sons raised the issues of tax cuts as well as a reduction in regulatory interventions in the U.S.
Mr. Ambani, for his part, informed the U.S. President of the work that his company was doing, including in the telecommunications sector. “We are the only [telecom] network in the world that doesn’t have a single Chinese component,” Mr. Ambani asserted, adding that Mr. Trump’s policies had also had a rub-off effect on India. Specifically, he mentioned the reduction in tax rates as an example.
During the interaction, Mr. Trump asserted that as per the current trends it was likely that he would win re-election, adding that the U.S. economy had ‘never been better’.
